Most of you will know the story by now. Story in short(ish) form goes something like this:
1982 - 2000: Amanda grows up just outside of Hamilton, waiting for the moment when she can fly away.
2001 - 2002: Amanda gets her chance, and flies all the way to England.
2002 - 2006: Amanda flies all the way to BC next, and finishes her undergraduate degree.
2006 - 2007: Amanda encounters a stumbling block in her Move To Scotland And Emigrate plan. Moves back to the outskirts of Hamilton, works at Chapters for a year, does not really engage with the city at all.
2007 - 2010: Amanda flies away again, this time to Scotland, where she falls Madly In Love with Edinburgh and swears that she'll never, ever leave.
2010: The Move To Scotland And Emigrate plan is foiled by any/all of the following things: lack of money, lack of a visa, The Conservatives, lack of money, lack of a Suitable Scottish Husband/Life Partner, no energy, an inability to watch the occasional Toronto Maple Leafs game online due to the time difference, lack of money, lack of money, lack of money. Amanda stays in Scotland until November (aka The Bitter End), and moves back home.
End 2010 - October 2011: The Year of Cayuga. Life with The Parents. Lots of cooking, lots of dogwalking, plenty of existential angst. Plans to move to Montreal are foiled by, once again, a lack of money.
October 2011: Amanda moves, most grudgingly, to Hamilton.
October 2011 - Present: Hamilton, infinitely surprising Hamilton, proceeds to show Amanda exactly what is what.
Last night I went to the "Live in Hamilton" taping of Q, held at the McIntyre Performing Arts Centre at Mohawk College. I could have walked there, but I was running a wee bit late and so I took the bus.It took me all of four minutes. Met up with the ever lovely Brent van Staalduinen (one of the readers at our most recent Steeltown Speakeasy) and his wife, Rosalie, and then proceeded to while the minutes before the show away talking about books and writing and all of those wonderful things.
And then ... Q! Jian Ghomeshi! The Arkells! Rita Chiarelli! Sky Gilbert! And whole host of other lovely Hamilton-based folk all sharing the stage. It was really lovely. I felt excited to be in the crowd. Excited to be a part of the city.
Just under a year ago, I met Lisa Pijuan-Nomura at The Pearl Company, one of Hamilton's theatres. We were there to see a performance of Corin Raymond's BOOKWORM (shout out to Jessica, over at Not My Typewriter, who was there to enjoy it with us too!). We got to chatting during the intermission, and found out that Lisa had only recently relocated to Hamilton from Toronto. "Toronto's too busy now," she told me. "There's too much going on. People don't stop." It fascinated me, particularly once she went on to explain that she'd worked as an artist in Toronto for the better part of twenty years. I'd heard talk of the Great Migration out of Toronto, sure, but here was living proof right in front of me of someone who had done it. Hard to believe.
Understand -- at the time, I was still positive that I wouldn't be in Hamilton all that long. A year, tops. Twelve months and then I'm out, I kept thinking. Sure, living downtown is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. Sure, there's the ArtCrawl. The galleries. The library thirty seconds from my door. But it's HAMILTON.
Then all kinds of articles started popping up about the Migration, too. Articles like this one in The Grid. Articles like this one in Toronto Life. Inevitably, I started noticing other articles that had been singing Hamilton's praises too. And as the year went on, I found myself meeting more and more people who'd left Toronto for this smaller city. CBC opened a Hamilton digital centre, the first of its kind in Canada. gritLIT happened. April saw the opening of my favourite bookstore in the city. The summer brought with it numerous ArtCrawls. Supercrawl came and went in September. Fun times, guys. I really had no idea.
In and around all of that, there were LitLunches. There was LitLive. There was LitChat. Then, toward the end of the year, there was the Steeltown Speakeasy. So many exciting artsy things in a town that I had most definitely decided wasn't artsy at all.
Since the summer, I feel like I've apologized to people ten times over whenever I mention Hamilton. "I'm really sorry," I say. "But I honestly had no idea." I was such a reluctant Hamiltonian to begin with. No doubt this has a lot to do with the fact that I grew up on the outskirts of the city -- you know, wanting to get out and see the world, blah blah, all that kind of thing. I'd be lying if I said those feelings aren't still there -- not a day goes by that doesn't see me ruminating on Where To Go Next, or thinking about other moves in the future.
But Hamilton has surprised me a hundred times over. I feel like it's become such an exciting city to be a part of, not least of all because it's cheap enough that one can practice art and not worry about starving! There's so much rich history here, and unexpected beauty. Almost two years ago I remember reading Kathleen Winter's blog entry about Hamilton and feeling mildly surprised -- there's no beauty in Hamilton, I thought. I wish I had Kathleen Winter's eyes! Well what do you know, but I see beautiful little things all the time now too. Like the flower shop at the end of my street, or the great new coffee place that opened up a short walk away, or the woodland trails that I run through in the spring.
And poems like these that make me see the city with new eyes all over again.
So when Jian Ghomeshi stood onstage last night and joked with us all about Hamilton, and hinted that, you know, maybe he should move here (quote, "I'll have to ask my imaginary wife"), I'm pretty darned sure I wasn't the only person in the audience who sat there and thought, "Come."
This little city's got a lot to offer, folks. Come check out the waterfalls and the ArtCrawls and the bookstores and the coffee, the galleries and the woodland trails and the lakefront and the music. I'll even throw a LitLunch for you, if you want to join.
1982 - 2000: Amanda grows up just outside of Hamilton, waiting for the moment when she can fly away.
2001 - 2002: Amanda gets her chance, and flies all the way to England.
2002 - 2006: Amanda flies all the way to BC next, and finishes her undergraduate degree.
2006 - 2007: Amanda encounters a stumbling block in her Move To Scotland And Emigrate plan. Moves back to the outskirts of Hamilton, works at Chapters for a year, does not really engage with the city at all.
2007 - 2010: Amanda flies away again, this time to Scotland, where she falls Madly In Love with Edinburgh and swears that she'll never, ever leave.
2010: The Move To Scotland And Emigrate plan is foiled by any/all of the following things: lack of money, lack of a visa, The Conservatives, lack of money, lack of a Suitable Scottish Husband/Life Partner, no energy, an inability to watch the occasional Toronto Maple Leafs game online due to the time difference, lack of money, lack of money, lack of money. Amanda stays in Scotland until November (aka The Bitter End), and moves back home.
End 2010 - October 2011: The Year of Cayuga. Life with The Parents. Lots of cooking, lots of dogwalking, plenty of existential angst. Plans to move to Montreal are foiled by, once again, a lack of money.
October 2011: Amanda moves, most grudgingly, to Hamilton.
October 2011 - Present: Hamilton, infinitely surprising Hamilton, proceeds to show Amanda exactly what is what.
And then ... Q! Jian Ghomeshi! The Arkells! Rita Chiarelli! Sky Gilbert! And whole host of other lovely Hamilton-based folk all sharing the stage. It was really lovely. I felt excited to be in the crowd. Excited to be a part of the city.
Just under a year ago, I met Lisa Pijuan-Nomura at The Pearl Company, one of Hamilton's theatres. We were there to see a performance of Corin Raymond's BOOKWORM (shout out to Jessica, over at Not My Typewriter, who was there to enjoy it with us too!). We got to chatting during the intermission, and found out that Lisa had only recently relocated to Hamilton from Toronto. "Toronto's too busy now," she told me. "There's too much going on. People don't stop." It fascinated me, particularly once she went on to explain that she'd worked as an artist in Toronto for the better part of twenty years. I'd heard talk of the Great Migration out of Toronto, sure, but here was living proof right in front of me of someone who had done it. Hard to believe.
Understand -- at the time, I was still positive that I wouldn't be in Hamilton all that long. A year, tops. Twelve months and then I'm out, I kept thinking. Sure, living downtown is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. Sure, there's the ArtCrawl. The galleries. The library thirty seconds from my door. But it's HAMILTON.
Then all kinds of articles started popping up about the Migration, too. Articles like this one in The Grid. Articles like this one in Toronto Life. Inevitably, I started noticing other articles that had been singing Hamilton's praises too. And as the year went on, I found myself meeting more and more people who'd left Toronto for this smaller city. CBC opened a Hamilton digital centre, the first of its kind in Canada. gritLIT happened. April saw the opening of my favourite bookstore in the city. The summer brought with it numerous ArtCrawls. Supercrawl came and went in September. Fun times, guys. I really had no idea.
In and around all of that, there were LitLunches. There was LitLive. There was LitChat. Then, toward the end of the year, there was the Steeltown Speakeasy. So many exciting artsy things in a town that I had most definitely decided wasn't artsy at all.
Since the summer, I feel like I've apologized to people ten times over whenever I mention Hamilton. "I'm really sorry," I say. "But I honestly had no idea." I was such a reluctant Hamiltonian to begin with. No doubt this has a lot to do with the fact that I grew up on the outskirts of the city -- you know, wanting to get out and see the world, blah blah, all that kind of thing. I'd be lying if I said those feelings aren't still there -- not a day goes by that doesn't see me ruminating on Where To Go Next, or thinking about other moves in the future.
But Hamilton has surprised me a hundred times over. I feel like it's become such an exciting city to be a part of, not least of all because it's cheap enough that one can practice art and not worry about starving! There's so much rich history here, and unexpected beauty. Almost two years ago I remember reading Kathleen Winter's blog entry about Hamilton and feeling mildly surprised -- there's no beauty in Hamilton, I thought. I wish I had Kathleen Winter's eyes! Well what do you know, but I see beautiful little things all the time now too. Like the flower shop at the end of my street, or the great new coffee place that opened up a short walk away, or the woodland trails that I run through in the spring.
And poems like these that make me see the city with new eyes all over again.
So when Jian Ghomeshi stood onstage last night and joked with us all about Hamilton, and hinted that, you know, maybe he should move here (quote, "I'll have to ask my imaginary wife"), I'm pretty darned sure I wasn't the only person in the audience who sat there and thought, "Come."
This little city's got a lot to offer, folks. Come check out the waterfalls and the ArtCrawls and the bookstores and the coffee, the galleries and the woodland trails and the lakefront and the music. I'll even throw a LitLunch for you, if you want to join.
I love this! I grew up in Stoney Creek, but I remember when I moved downtown in my late teens I was surprised by how much I loved it. And when we lived in Toronto, we yearned for this place. To know it is to love it.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing lots of great stuff for this great city.